


je n'abandonnerai pas (sans combat)

by orphan_account



Series: beaucoup trop jeune pour mourir {On Hiatus!} [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: AKA The Series We Want From Filoni But Deep Down Know Isn't Going To Happen, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Autistic Character, Autistic Dawn Syndulla, Autistic Sabine Wren, Bisexual Male Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Cussing, Deaf Character, Deaf Dawn Syndulla, Domestic Fluff, Don't worry I'll edit this in August, F/F, Fluff, Gossip, Hurt/Comfort, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Juust A Touch Of Angst I Swear, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Relationship, Naboo Is Space New Jersey, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Out Of Character Sabine, Panic Attacks, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Romance, Post-Canon, Sensory Overload, Taking God's Name In Vain Like The Satanist I Am, That's Not How The Force Works, To Be Edited, Which Is Why This Exists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-05-28 02:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15038525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It's time to go find Ezra. And the Mural Lady.I (theoretically) update every Friday but I'm shit at sticking to it.No, this work is in English, not French.





	1. Chapter 1

"I'm home!" Sabine called.

"Help me!" was the response she got, called from the living room of the house, carved out of a hollow mountain just outside of Capital City on Lothal.

"You okay, Babe?" Sabine called back, shrugging off her cardigan and hanging it up before walking to the centre of the house to the living room.

"I'm being repressed by younglings." Ketsu deadpanned, looking up at Sabine from the ground, where she was indeed pinned down by two small children.

"Jakuri! Roya! Come give your _Buir_ a hug!" Sabine said quickly, and the two girls leapt up to hug their mother.

"Buir! Jacen and I played Jedi today and he fin'ly 'greed to be the Sith! And I won! And tomorrow Dawn promised to play too!" Roya exclaimed, her fresh ginger bob bouncing with the little girl.

"And I learned five new words today, so I can say a full sentence in Lothillian!" Jakuri said.

"Good work, Roya! Tell me what you can say, Jakuri."

" _Minkanta'wo lingondeerrue yogann desn?_ " The eight-year old recited.

" _Golrikaa iie molkaltar jingotreu maketc. Keya desn?_ " Sabine asked, her eyes looking at Jakuri but her words looking at Ketsu.

"Buir, you only said that so I couldn't understand!" Jakuri said.

"No, I asked your mother a question."

" _Lokintgo lingondeerrue yogann lokat jin'goŵo heïjn,"_ Ketsu responded.

"What're you guys saying?" Jakuri asked, slightly frustrated but also amused.

"Well, did you really want yogan juice?" Sabine asked.

"Tease?" Roya pleaded.

"Yes, but that wasn't the point." Jakuri said, absentmindedly braiding her long jet-black hair as she spoke

"You'd better get to the kitchen fast, or I'll eat all of the yogans before your mom can make juice!" Sabine said.

"Run, Roya!" Jakuri screeched, gently pushing her three-year-old sister along, who laughed as they raced to the kitchen.

"Soon, Jakuri will understand everything we're saying over her head and they both already speak Mando'a and know GBSL, so we'll have to move to another language," Ketsu said, kissing her wife on the cheek.

"Yeah, but then she'll be motivated to learn whatever language we choose too, and then soon we'll have to switch again," Sabine pointed out, wrapping an arm around Ketsu as they strolled to the kitchen.

"Which will keep her on her toes and force her to learn more languages, making her the polyglot of Lothal, and when we go to other planets to be tourists she'll be able to communicate with everyone."

"True."

The two women lasped into silence.

"Should we tell them today?" Ketsu asked suddenly, right before they got to the kitchen.

"It's now or never," Sabine said.

Ketsu nodded and the two entered the kitchen.

"Four yogan juices, coming right up!" Ketsu said cheerfully, opening the fridge to grab the fruit, while Sabine poked around in the cabinet for the juicer, which she plopped on the counter and plugged in.

Once the fruits were in the juicer, Sabine added a bit of sugar and a few sticks of tang bark, her own special touch that balanced out the sourness of yogans, and Ketsu turned it on.

When everyone had a cup and were seated at the counter together on stools, Sabine cleared her throat.

"Roya, Jakuri?"

The two girls stared unblinkingly at her, which kind of freaked her out, but she'd gotten used to it happening every time she addressed both of her daughters at the same time.

"Next week, I'm not going to come home from work."

"Are you gonna get beat up and killed by a gang?" Jakuri asked.

Roya's green eyes filled up with tears and she promptly began to bawl.

"Sabine!"

"Sorry, sorry, wasn't the right way to put it. No, I'm not going to die, besides there's no gangs on Lothal, you had better not been watching the holo-movie your mom and I watched last night after you were supposed to be in bed, and I'm going on a trip with your aunt Ashoka."

Roya stopped crying.

"Will she stay at our house again?"

"No, not until we get back."

"Where are you going with her?" Jakuri asked.

"We're... we're going to go find the Portrait Man, and the Mural Lady."

"Finally!" Jakuri yelled, pumping her fists into the air. "I finally get to be a Jedi!"

"Only if he agrees, and anyway, he'll have to train Jacen too either way. Hera wouldn't have it any other way."

"Where are they gonna sleep when they get here?" Roya asked, taking a swig of yogan juice that left a purple mustache on her face which Sabine wiped off as she answered.

"Your aunt Ashoka might stay with us for a day or two with the Mural Lady, and Portrait Man will probably stay with Hera and Jacen."

Hera, when she heard that Ketsu and Sabine were adopting Jakuri, had sat them down and had names figured out for the two of them in an hour ('Buir', the Mando'a word for parent, for Sabine, and a simple 'Mom' for Ketsu) and had made them promise that she wouldn't be referred to as 'grand' anything, since she was only eight years Sabine's senior, so she was referred to simply as Hera.

"When will you be back?"

"I don't know. But I'll call you guys every night I'm able, and you'll have Jacen and Dawn to play with, plus Mom will still be here."

* * *

 

They'd long since tucked the kids in, and now Sabine and Ketsu were on the couch in the living room, sipping Correllian wine out of their fancy spill-proof wine glasses they'd had ever since Hera had caught them with wine in her common room, and instead of yelling at them, had pulled the Ghost out of its lazy hover over the plains of Lothal and flipped it upside down, scaring the frick out of the girls and shattering the glasses they'd been using.

"I can't believe you have to leave me for a month, Bean," Ketsu said.

"I know, Ketsu. I'd take you along too, if it weren't for the kids."

"Why can't Hera watch them? She loves them."

"Hera doesn't know the real reason I'm leaving Lothal."

"And besides, the baby," Ketsu mumbled.

Sabine looked at Ketsu.

"What?" Ketsu asked innocently?"

"What did you just say?"

"OH... It worked, Bean," Ketsu said quietly.

"You mean..."

"We're gonna have a baby in a couple months, Bean."

Sabine let out a soft laugh, mindful of her sleeping daughters upstairs.

"Best thing about being queer? I have fertility issues, but there's a whole other oven to cook 'em in," she remarked.

"You did get Roya out safely enough," Ketsu pointed out.

"Yeah, but do you even remember how long it took? How much donated sperm I went through? We'd started talking about adopting again. And before that, when I tried to get pregnant before we caved and adopted Jakuri..."

"I remember. But now, I get the experience of pregnancy."

"Ketsu, literally the only good thing is lack of period, and that doesn't really balance out the crummy things. Remember my morning sickness?"

"Ugh."

"I will call you every night we have service, and if you can't get through to me, we have the links, and if mine starts pulsing I will literally build a network just so I can reach you."

The links were two identical bracelets, silver with a large blue circle and locked onto each other's wrists, so if one of them tapped on it six times in a row, the other's link would start pulsing.

"Ashoka told me that Mural Lady was great at reprogramming droids during the Clone Wars, maybe she could help you with it."

Sabine was silent for a moment. "I never told you Mural Lady's real name, did I?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my Camp Nanowrimo project this July, but I've been so excited about this I decided to jump the gun and write a bit to get a head-start.
> 
> The series will have three fics, each with around 7 chapters, and a one-shot after all of it to wrap things up.
> 
> Jakuri is the eldest of Ketsu and Sabine's children at eight years old, and she has umber skin, grey eyes, and long black hair, and Roya, at three years old, has Ursa's skin, green eyes, and ginger red wavy hair.
> 
> In this series, Hera had Jacen and Dawn as twins, Dawn receiving most of the Twi'Lek genes, Jacen getting his father's genes for the most part, and Dawn was born deaf, and it was later discovered that she was also autistic, both most likely due to the higher risk of birth defects and abnormalities in interspecies babies. Jacen is older by 13 minutes.
> 
> Kanan is, unfortunately, dead in this fic. I am attempting to stay within the lines of canon for the most part here, but since this is post-canon and none of the Spectres are appearing in the sequel fic (and tbh they're probs all on Lothal waiting it out) and Dawn, Jakuri, and Roya are your compensation for this, since technically they can be canon.
> 
> Updates will come (hopefully) every Friday, but I didn't feel like waiting until next Friday to post all this.
> 
> Please note that I update tags and warnings as I write the story, not as I post, so if one tag seems to have come out of nowhere and make zero sense, it'll most likely be explained in an upcoming chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sabine leaves Lothal. Nobody's really happy for her to leave, not even she.

"Jakuri," Sabine whispered, shaking her daughter gently.

The girl in question hummed and rolled over.

"Jakuri, I've got to leave soon, do you want some waffles?" she tried, shaking the girl a little more.

Jakuri's head shot straight up, and she looked at Sabine wildly.

Sabine had traded in her usual bright red dye for a bright purple one last night after Jakuri and Roya had gone to bed, and trimmed her hair a bit, so she did look very different in the dim lighting of the room Jakuri and Roya shared.

"There's waffles?" The younger girl gasped.

"Yup, and we're going to let you try Spirian caf, if you want," Sabine grinned.

Jakuri pumped her fist in the air in excitement, and ran out of the room to the hall, and Sabine could hear her sliding down the stairwell as she shook little Roya awake.

When she came downstairs holding Roya on her hip, Jakuri was looking out the window. "Wow, it's still really dark outside, it looks like night," she commented.

"Yeah, it's only six, and the sun usually doesn't rise here until eight, now that it's winter, but you and Roya are lucky, your school doesn't start until nine. When I was little, we had to be up at four in the morning doing push-ups," Ketsu said, grabbing dishes from the cabinet to serve the waffles on.

"And sometimes, during the war, neither of us would sleep for days," Sabine added, giving Ketsu a peck on the cheek that was supposed to be quick, but Ketsu pulled her face back and smashed their lips together, and held Sabine's head from her cheekbones to above her ears, sinking her fingers into Sabine's freshly cropped pixie, and Sabine wrapped her arms around Ketsu's neck, bringing the woman impossibly closer-

They were interrupted by loud laughing, and the two pulled away quickly, and stared, embarrassed, at their daughters, who had quite obviously seen the whole thing.

Sabine blushed, and instinctively tried to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear as she went for the caf machine, and taking the two steaming hot mugs of Spiran caf from it, and made a perfect foam in order to make a heart in both her and Ketsu's cups, drizzled chocolate sauce over it, sprinkled some crushed tang bark, and handed Ketsu her cup, and Ketsu handed Sabine a plate of waffles.

It was perfect synchronisation that had taken years to perfect, but once they had, most mornings and meals and before that, battles and sieges, had gone smoother when they'd figured it out.

"You make such great pictures in the caf every morning, Sabine, even when you're in a rush. I'm gonna miss that," Ketsu said, cutting up Roya's waffles.

"Ketsu, don't get sentimental, it's hard enough to keep from crying before I can eat these waffles," Sabine said as she slid Jakuri's plate of waffles that she'd cut up for her across the counter to the girl who caught it, thanked her buir, and began eating happily.

"Just imagine how hard it'll be when you have to say goodbye to everyone," Ketsu teased, and Sabine wiped her eyes with the heels of her palms. "Ket, stop it, jeez."

"Buir, you said I could try the Spirian caf," Jakuri said, but her mouth was full of waffle, so it sounded more like "Brr, yoah saa taa eh cmphld teh sphmm cnf," but years with Ezra had taught her how to understand muffled speech, even if someone was buried under ten feet of rubble.

"Finish chewing, then you can try it," Sabine said, reaching behind Ketsu to catch a piece of waffle that Roya was attempting to throw on the ground.

"Roya, don't throw your food on the ground," she admonished, plopping it back on the three-year-old's plate.

"It's yucky! It has a big black spot on it!" Roya cried.

Ketsu and Sabine tried to both take a look at it, and neither was sure how, but they both ended up on the floor, Ketsu landing on top of Sabine, who gave an "Oof," before pushing the dark-skinned woman off her, ignoring Jakuri's food-muffled laughter until it turned into choking and Sabine smacked her on the back, bringing the food up quickly.

Ketsu stood up, now that Jakuri wasn't choking and leaned over Roya's plate toactually examine the piece of waffle. "Roya, that's the chocolate I put in the waffles, your waffle just happened to get a bunch of chocolate in one place," she said, then settled back in her seat, and Sabine resumed eating at the stool next to her, while Roya cheered happily and popped the piece in her mouth.

"Now can I try the caf, buir?" Jakuri asked after a couple minutes of silence.

"Sure," Sabine said, handing Jakuri the mug, which was instantly brought to the girl's mouth to take a big sip, but instantly jerked it away, and hastily swallowed the caf, all the while with a hugely disgusted face on, which Ketsu and Sabine had a good laugh about.

Sabine wanted this moment to last forever, but soon, everyone was done eating, the dishes were washed, and the girls were dressed, and it was time to say goodbye.

She hugged Jakuri first, and opened her bag to reveal two books, _Lothila'aan 2_ and _Lothila'aan 3,_ the second and third Lothilian language workbooks which the girl had been begging for ever since finishing the first one.

Next was Roya, who gave a very good toddler hug while crying into Sabine's shoulder plate, and Sabine's gift to her was a book of science experiments, something that the little girl was deeply fascinated with.

Then, it was Ketsu's turn, but instead of hugging her wife right there, she tugged her into the living room and kissed the woman with all her might, and they just stood there, in the centre of the room, kissing like they might never kiss again, for several minutes with only a couple short breaks for breath bringing them apart until Ketsu regretfully pulled away the whole way.

"It's already seven fifteen, you're going to be late," she reminded Sabine breathlessly.

Sabine nodded, panting quietly, and followed Ketsu to the door, and enveloped both her daughters and her wife in one big group hug.

"Love you all. Be good!" She said, before looking at Ketsu and then her wrist pointedly. Ashoka was supposed to pick her up at the portrait at seven fifty, it was seven twenty already.

So the women broke the hug, and Sabine kissed Ketsu passionately one last time, ignoring her daughters, and then stepped back, took in the picture of her family standing there, filed it away in her memories, and whispered goodbye before walking out the door hurriedly, both attempting to not be late and trying not to cry in front of her daughters.

She walked to Ezra's tower, they'd fixed it up and preserved it for him to see when he got home, to quickly grab one last thing- his lightsaber.

After the tower had been restored, she'd stuck the lightsaber in a drawer and nearly forgot about it, but after she and Ashoka had arranged the trip, she'd decided to bring his lightsaber, just so she could hit him upside the head with it when they found him.

Now, she stood out on the balcony, holding back tears as she looked out at Capital City, then quickly hurried back down when she saw Ashoka's ship, the _Amidala,_ fly overhead, with two X-Wing escorts flanking it, and took the speeder bike that she'd left there the last time she'd visited to get to the tram station.

She cried most of the tram ride from Outer City Station to Northeast Centraal Straat, and dabbed a bit of one of the five Mandalorian elixirs that she'd packed into both of her eyes. The particular one she used was really meant for clearing up rashes and clotting blood, but she'd found out during the war that it was excellent at clearing up red eyes.

She walked quickly down Centraal Straat, then down Schilderkunst Straat, admiring all the Old Lothillian that had seeped into Captial City after it'd been liberated, and walked up the stairs to the the portrait.

It was really a planetary monument, but it was a painting of people, specifically the Spectres, and it was her all-time greatest work, so it was a portrait, and she could never call it a monument.

She walked up to Ezra's spot in the portrait and tapped his face, right under his left eye, and let it trail down a bit, trying to imagine actual, warm, soft, breathing skin rather than the smooth and room temperature rock and paint her finger actual felt.

A shadow washed over her, blocking the warm rising sun.

She turned around, and there was Ashoka, in a white cloak, who gave her a look that told Sabine all that she needed to know.

She nodded slightly, and pulled on her helmet, walking across the rock to Ashoka, and following the Torgruta into the ship.

It wasn't until they were in the air that anyone spoke.

"So, we know we're going Galactic South to Naboo, but then where?" Ashoka asked, her eyes not leaving the viewport of the ship all the while to so much as glance at the younger woman in the copilot's chair.

"I brought a datachip with all the clues I have about the Chimera's original trajectory, plus some holo-maps of wild space that Zeb got me from Lira San, add your data in and we should be able to narrow it down to a few planets while we're in hyperspace. I already have a list of several planets that I think Ezra might've ended up at," Sabine answered.

Ashoka nodded, and they fell silent until the ship had entered hyperspace, when they got up and headed to the common room to compare data.

Sabine, as it turned out, had a list of nine possible planets that Ezra could logically be on with what data she had, and after bringing Ashoka's data into the fold, they'd narrowed it down to five possible planets.

"It's not great, but it's better than nine," Sabine said, putting away her data chip.

"Indeed. Besides, if there's civilisation where we land on whatever planet, we can ask around for him when we land," Ashoka pointed out.

"Yeah."

The two once again lapsed into silence, and Sabine sincerely hoped that this wouldn't last the entire mission. Luckily, Ashoka spoke up.

"Have you ever been to Naboo, Sabine?" She asked.

"No, I don't think so," Sabine answered, caught slightly off guard by the Torgruta's sudden question.

"We'll have to come back one day for more than just a refuelling. It's an utterly beautiful planet, and I was there several times during the Clone Wars. I... I was a friend of Senator Amidala, and often had missions on the planet, since it was fiercely loyal to the Republic."

"You were really friends with her?"

"Indeed."

"What was she like?"

"Well, she was a great woman. A voice of liberty, kind to all she met, but she was sad. I never knew why, and I believe that it was all her past experiences, every instance of someone or something dying out right before her eyes, of liberty and rights being violated disgustingly, that made her want to be Queen, and continue to work for liberty in the Senate when her term was up, but for all her kindness, she was a bit too soft, which I believe might've attributed to her downfall," Ashoka answered. "I wasn't there when she was killed, and I know that the official cause of death, that she'd died of a broken heart, was not true, but I don't know how she died, and knowing her, I knew that her softness was going to get her killed one day, sooner or later."

"If she were alive now, do you think she would've been a good Rebel commander?" Sabine wondered.

Ashoka thought for a moment before saying, "Yes, I believe she would've. She picked up a lot of war strategy from being in the very room where most of it happens, and every so often even being in the Jedi war room during a briefing or a strategy meeting, or finding out that she was in the centre of a carefully-laid-out siege or diplomatic battle that she hadn't previously known about. And, besides that, I think that being in the Rebellion would've forced her to get over how soft she was. She'd still be deeply caring and empathetic, but would've had to let go of her softness."

"It sounds like she was a great person."

Ashoka nodded. "She was."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Old Lothilian is basically Dutch, so that I only have to make up Lothilian when Jakuri, Ketsu, and Roya call Sabine, and also because I recently went to Amsterdam, and the idea of Capital City (or at least part of it) being Amsterdam with canals and bikes galore and those cute hooks on all the houses. Can you IMAGINE?
> 
> I'll be writing a heck of a lot more than one chapter a week in a few days when July starts, since my project is this series, and I hope to have everything in this series written by the end of the month, but I'll continue to update only on Fridays (I'm only posting this today, Thursday, because I'm going to be out of town all day Friday), which means you'll (theoretically) still be getting chapters during Chanukah.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for nausea, near faint, and sudden illness.

"We're almost to Naboo, Sabine."

Sabine jerked awake to see Ashoka leaning over her, looking mildly concerned. Sabine realised that she'd fallen asleep in the copilots chair, and a fairly old-looking grey blanket was gently tucked around her, probably by the Torgruta that was standing in front of her now.

"You know, this ship does come equipped with several cabins. You get the second one to the left, we discussed this," Ashoka snarked.

"Yeah, but I was looking over a work file on the holo-globe and I fell asleep working on it," Sabine said, rubbing her eyes and sitting up.

"You really shouldn't be working, Sabine. This is not just a mission, but an adventure. You ought to enjoy yourself!"

"I need to send in this one report to Governor Tamaki, and then I'm officially on leave until we get back. I just couldn't get it done before we left, that's all, and I needed to finish it while we still have guaranteed network so I can actually send it in or the orphans in Sector 109 are gonna go hungry without the new food order and the lack of this report is the only thing barring the order from being carried out-"

"Sabine. Relax. It's alright, just go freshen up and you can finish it before we land, send it in on Naboo, and then we'll go have lunch while we're being refulled and checked by mantaince crews on Naboo."

"Why don't we just check it and refuel it ourselves?"

"Sabine, it's Naboo. Nobody refills their own fuel, or runs their own diagnostics."

"Why ever not?"

Ashoka shrugged. "I don't know, but it's always been that way on Naboo for as long as I can remember."

After the two of them had been silent for a bit, Sabine got up, folded the blanket, and went to the fresher to get ready for the day.

When she returned, she continued to work on the report on the handy dandy holo-globe that the copilot's chair had in front of it, and finished it just after they exited hyperspace and Ashoka neatly guided the Amidala into the port.

Their stay there was only two hours, but Sabine knew just from the few streets she saw that she'd have to come back one day, preferably with Ketsu and the kids. It was a beautiful city, the crepes that she and Ashoka ordered were probably the best food she'd ever had (well, except for the stuffed grape leaves that she'd gotten on Coruscant that one time) and it was perfectly quaint and organised.

Soon, though, they had to leave, and launched into hyperspace into wild space.

Because it was mostly uncharted and they ran the risk of running into a star or something, they decided to take shifts sleeping and sitting up front where they could guide them around any obstacles, and Sabine volunteered for the first shift on the first night.

It was now Sabine's fourth shift of night two in hyperspace, and they'd suddenly dropped out of hyperspace just as she had settled into the pilot's seat.

One look around the cockpit and the culprit was easily located- the flashing red button to her right denoted that they were out of fuel.

Sabine had no karking idea how they'd run out of fuel so fast, but the good thing was that there was a planet right there anyway, so she guided them onto the planet and landed the ship as gently as she could when she was basically falling through the sky. Hera would've been proud of her landing.

Ashoka, woken by the ship plummeting to it's certain death, had gotten into the cockpit and been a terrible backseat pilot the entire way down (is it still backseat pilot if you're sitting in the copilot seat? Well, either way, it's annoying.) and she was the only one who hadn't hit her head and been knocked out for a couple seconds after impact, mostly because she'd anticipated the crash and held herself in a hover with the Force to avoid crashing into anything.

Sabine pretty much missed the impact, but boy, did she feel it when she came to a couple seconds later, Ashoka stepping over something to try and get to her.

"Please tell me that the ship isn't entirely wrecked," Sabine groaned, sitting up with a hand on her throbbing head.

"No, you did a pretty good job of landing it, it's probably just a bit scratched up," Ashoka reassured her while she tapped a couple buttons. "But why did we drop out of hyperspace in the first place?"

"Fuel's empty," Sabine said shortly. "And you are a terrible backseat pilot."

"Sorry, it's a bad habit I've picked up after a supply run to Leio IV a couple years ago. The pilot was fresh out of training, and we had to make an emergency landing and they didn't know what to do at all. I had to feed them instructions and the cargo ship was still badly damaged."

"Glad Hera wasn't flying, or she would've... I don't know what she would've done, but we should probably run a diagnostic and see if there's any civilisation around here."

"Good idea. I'll start up the diagnostic, you collect yourself and make sure that you don't have a concussion," Ashoka said, getting up.

"Aye aye, General Tano," Sabine responded.

Ashoka came back after a couple minutes with the results and a holo-map. "Nothing was badly damaged in the crash, just scraped up the outermost hull layer, but we're completely out of fuel, and according to Zeb's maps, we should be on this planet right here," she said, tapping a planet directly to the south of Naboo by a couple thousand klicks. "Good news is, we're only a half-day hyperspace jump to several of the planets we suspect Ezra's on."

"That's good," Sabine said. "Any information on the planet on the holo-net?"

Ashoka shook her head. "Absolutely nothing, not even a name. Zeb's maps and records don't even say anything. It's either mostly or entirely uninhabited or something terrible happened to people who landed here last."

"Well, let's take a walk around, see what we can see," Sabine said. "It's better than sitting in here doing nothing."

Ashoka nodded and discreetly grabbed her lightsabers and hooked them on her belt. Well, she thought she did it discreetly, anyway, but Sabine could tell. She grabbed Ezra's lightsaber and hooked it on her own belt and said nothing to Ashoka as the two exited the ship, Ashoka grabbing her staff as an afterthought.

Outside, the terrain was three to six foot wide grayish-bluish rocks, with a grey sky, and the faint shine out in the horizon to the west that Sabine could tell was an ocean. To the east there were more rocks, to the south there was more rocks, and to the north was a mountain with... was that smoke just above it?

"You see that?" Sabine asked. Ashoka nodded. "Let's walk in that direction, hopefully we won't have to climb the mountain, though."

After about thirty minutes of walking, they were at the base of the mountain, and it was clear that the smoke was coming from the other side of it, so the two defeatedly began to scale the mountain.

It really wasn't a very tall mountain, just rocky and rough going as they cleared themselves a path walking up among tiny black rocks and the large grey-blue ones.

After about two hours of walking, though, Sabine started coughing, and soon her steps became less confident and more swaying, and soon, Ashoka had to grab her and force her to lay out on the rocks because the young woman's face had become greyer than the sky and she looked as if she were two seconds from passing out and cracking her skull open on the rocks.

"You okay, Sabine?" Ashoka asked after a couple seconds.

Sabine rubbed her eyes. "I don't know what it is, but I felt lightheaded and blazing hot even though it can't be more than forty degrees here, and nauseous."

"It could be the air on the planet. Humans can't handle too much change in the air type or too much of one chemical in it. You think you can walk?"

Sabine tried valiantly, she really did, but even with Ashoka helping her up, she felt like she was going to pass out or throw up again and swayed unhealthily.

"I'm gonna go with no," Ashoka said, holding Sabine up by her middle.

The Torgruta stared out at the planet before them and thought for a moment before suddenly taking off her cloak, securing it onto Sabine with the hood up, and lifting Sabine up onto her back, slipping her arms around the backs of Sabine's knees and grabbing her staff with her right hand again.

Sabine grunted and wrapped her arms under Ashoka's to hold on.

"Now you can ride the rest of the way. We should be at the top pretty soon, anyway," Ashoka said, drawing the sides of the cloak that was far too big for Sabine's dainty frame around herself in an effort to keep warm.

Sabine was hot against her back, and Torgruta have much better resistance to the cold, but the cold here slipped into your bones and chilled you from the inside out, so though the cloak didn't do much for the front of her body now, she wanted every possible bit of it without completely robbing it from Ashoka.

Sabine hummed in response, and rested her head on Ashoka's shoulder, while Ashoka continued up the rocks.  
  
It was much harder going with someone on her back at first, especially when Sabine fell asleep and stopped holding onto Ashoka so well, but once she got used to it, she easily picked her way up the remaining stretch of mountain and set Sabine down on a rock while she looked out around her.

Just as she'd expected, she saw a long flat rock jutting out from the mountain about three quarters of the way down, with smoke pouring out of it gracefully, plus at least twenty huts and rock houses at the base of the mountain.

Going down with Sabine on her back was much harder than going up, and a couple times the Torgruta nearly slipped down the side of the mountain, but finally, after a couple more hours, she'd reached the rock.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a small cave with nothing but smoking meat inside, but that meant that there were definitely sentients on the planet, so she continued down and finally, finally, reached the bottom.

A couple people came out of huts when they saw Ashoka, and as it turned out, they were all Torgruta.

" _Nanniket tâi, quis-kët lonkeno junįque_ ," Ashoka said quickly, talking in her native tongue of Torgruti.

" _Jinnør aenk. Nanniket tâi miskólyä nero wekn_ ," a green-skinned Torgruta woman with very long blue lekku said, and two teenage Torgruta, a yellow one and a blue one who looked like she might be the result of a Pantoran and a Torgruta getting together, judging by the thin white hair held in a ponytail sprouting from the centre of her back lek, gently pried the still unconscious Sabine off Ashoka's back and took her into a hut.

"Who are you?" The green Torgruta asked, in Basic, as she walked up to Ashoka.

"My name is Ashoka Tano," she answered, bowing to the elder woman as was custom.

"I am Juxtaposè Lør. I believe our paths crossed on Zygerria, back in the Clone Wars," she said, tapping Ashoka's shoulder to inform the younger woman to rise.

Ashoka studied Juxtaposè's face for a moment, trying to match the facial markings and colours to the Torgruta on Zygerria. "You were the woman who nearly fell to her death and I caught you, weren't you?"

"Indeed. I have owed you my life ever since that day, and perhaps now I can return the favour through your comrade."

"Why are you here, on this planet?" Ashoka asked. 

"After returning home, the Council decided to send a colony of our people out to a planet in wild space to see if perhaps, we could find a place to call home if Shili fell again. I was sent with them, and the second group of people brought a newborn babe named Kikäto."

Ashoka gasped. "All this time, and Kikäto has been just south of Naboo?" She asked incredulously.

"Yes," Juxtaposè said. "After the war, Shili sent us a message that they were destroying all their files before the Empire could find out that we were here, and sent out the second and final ship of Torgruta to deliver it. Thankfully, they made it here safe and sound, but the people of Shili... we have not heard of their fate, ever since the records were destroyed nobody contacted us. You and your comrade are the first people to come here in twenty years."

"Many of our people were enslaved by the Empire, unfortunately, after the war, but recently we broke them out of their chains, and the Republic has been restored. Shili is free now, and you may return home whenever you wish."

"That, is very good news, Lady Tano. And I do not doubt that you, too, were involved?"

"I was. We're actually here to find another comrade of ours who went MIA right before the war really began- well, we don't belive he's on this planet, but on any of five planets further southwest, and my comrade, whom I believe became sick from the air, is his sister."

"I see. Well, if she's become sick from the air the healers will quickly figure it out, and while they do, there is time yet to see Kikäto, if you wish."

"I would like that," Ashoka said.

Juxtaposè led Ashoka around a couple of huts before knocking on the door of a long stone building with a roof that split in two, in the shape of montrails.

A white-skinned Torgruta opened the door, and after a quick conversation in lekku between her and Juxaposè, she nodded. "She's inside, skinning the mikwado," she said, moving so that Ashoka and Juxaposè could come in.

The inside of the building was simple yet cozy, the floors were smooth shaped stone, there was a fire roaring in a fireplace, and there were a few rugs and simple wooden chairs.

"Kikäto, you have a visitor," Juxtaposè said to a purple Torgruta with odd facial markings and random splashes of pink dotting her skin who was indeed skinning a large, featherless bird with a stone knife.

The young woman turned around and stared at Ashoka for awhile, then looked at Juxtaposè questioningly.

"Yes, I know that you don't know her, but you may know her name, Ashoka Tano," Juxtaposè said.

The Torgruta gasped. "You're... you're the Jedi aunt who saved our people?"

"And you are my niece, daughter of Koi and..."

"Hikaru, a Twi'Lek man. I don't believe that they are alive anymore. I was sent on the last ship here by myself."

Ashoka nodded. "I knew that my sister perished in the immediate invasion of Shili. I wasn't there, but friends told me that she fought bravely until the end."

"And I thought that my aunt Ahsoka had died in Order 66."

"I am no longer a Jedi, I left the order after some... events. I worked with them until the Siege of Mandalore, though."

"I am very glad that you are still alive, though. I'd hug you, but my hands are covered in bird grease," Kikäto laughed.

"I understand, don't worry about it," Ashoka said. "Have you fared well here, Kikäto?"

The young woman nodded. "I got married a year ago to a nice, kind man - you'll have to meet him, before you leave, and recently I had a baby, and his name is Toreehd. You'll have to meet him, as well."

"Lady Tano, Miss Roan, forgive my interruption, but Lady Tano asked why we were here, I answered, and now, I'd like to know why she is here," Juxtaposè cut in.

"Oh, yes, I can't believe I forgot to tell you," Ashoka said. "I do remember saying that we were searching for my comrade, but the reason we're on this planet specifically is because we ran out of fuel and are in need of some minor repairs after we crashed here."

"Oh, that will be simple to fix. Once your friend is well enough to travel, we can send guides and mechanics to get you around the base of the mountain and once we're clear of it, we're sure to see your ship, and they'll make you repairs, and refuel. And actually, if you'd like I could send some mechanics out now, so they can get the ship repairs finished today, so you may leave in the morning," Juxtaposè suggested.

"That will be fine," Ashoka agreed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Naboo is space New Jersey with its refuelling laws. The only reason that it is is because I've been on a BMC kick.
> 
> \- Kikäto's last name, Roan, is in honour of Roan Mountain, famous for its rhododendrons, which I tried to see with my family, but instead just found a fuck ton of dead flowers and not much else. Also Roan is a really cute name and just??? 
> 
> \- Juxtaposè is named Juxtaposè because she was originally supposed to contrast with Ahsoka by being really happy all the time and cheerful, but I decided that Juxtaposè shouldn't... juxtapose Ahsoka, so now it's just there ~~because I didn't feel like changing it~~ to be ironic 
> 
> I'm only posting this today because I finished writing this fic earlier today, but you will still get your Friday chapter!
> 
>  
> 
> Torgruti translations: 
> 
> Nanniket tâi, quis-kët lonkeno junįque - Please, she is unwell
> 
> Jinnør aenk. Nanniket tâi miskólyä nero wekn - Oh dear, please bring (her) here.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything's going to be okay.

"She's in stable condition, there was simply too much carbon dioxide in the air and she reacted badly to it," the young Pantoran Torgruta said, whose name, Ashoka had just learned, was Nix.

"Is she awake?" Ashoka inquired.

"No, but she will be soon," the yellow-skinned one, Ashamnaah, said. "In the meantime, you may sit with her."

Ashoka nodded and entered the healer's hut.

It was dimly lit, the only light source coming from the fire in the hearth and the steady green smoke coming from a bowl sitting on a table in the corner that was laden with various medical supplies in the far corner that Ashoka wisely chose not to touch, and there were no windows.

Sabine was laid out on a pallet on the far side of the hut, almost directly across from the table, with a rough brown blanket drawn up to her chin, her head on a big feather pillow in a navy blue case. Thankfully, Sabine was not quite as grey in the face anymore, but definitely still not her usual colour. Her eyes were shut, and her helmet, armour, and Ezra's lightsaber were stacked neatly on a folded piece of cream-white material that Ashoka recognised as her cloak.

After a moments thought, she removed the brown blanket, unfolded the cloak, and was laying it out on top of her when Nix came in.

Nix stared at her for a moment, before saying, "I know, the blankets here are really uncomfortable," and going into the other side of the hut and began stirring the green potion.

Ashoka tucked the cloak around Sabine's tiny frame and laid the brown blanket on top of it, causing Sabine to stir slightly but not wake up.

Ashoka knelt by the side of the pallet and let herself slip into a light meditation as she waited for the Mandalorian to wake up.

As it turned out, she did not have to wait very long, because just twenty minutes later, Sabine stirred and her eyes fluttered open.

"Ashoka?" She murmured, drawing her arm over her eyes.

Ashoka gently moved the arm off Sabine's eyes and leaned over her. "Hi," she said.

"What happened?" Sabine asked, trying to sit up.

Ashoka held her down. "You passed out on the mountain from too much carbon dioxide. I found a village of Togruta at the base of the other side of the mountain, and they healed you."

Ashamnaah, who'd drifted into the room a couple minutes after Ashoka had begun meditating, brought a bowl of the green smoky stuff over. "This is to keep the air around you at the correct level of carbon dioxide, Lady Wren. It will have no effect on you, Lady Tano," she said as she set it at the side of the pallet, by Sabine's head.

"Thank you, Miss," Sabine said.

"My name is Ashamnaah," the Togruta said with a smile, bowing her head a little, before scurrying to the very centre of the hut to help Nix finish cooking whatever that inky black substance in the cauldron swinging gently over the crackling fire that the blue-skinned girl was stirring.

"What's the other one's name?" Sabine asked, shifting a bit to get more comfortable.

"Nix," Ashoka said.

"Are they the healers, or are they just apprentices?"

"We are the healers, we were apprentices until just last year, when the elder healer, Vosar Kees, died on a hunt," Nix said from across the room, sprinkling in some blue crumb-like substance from a paper bag that caused the stuff in the cauldron to turn purple and start giving off a steam much like the green stuff, but not as thick.

"I am sorry for your loss," Sabine responded formally.

"It is fine, he was not well liked by anyone in the first place. The praise he got for being a healer went to his head and he became a jerk, and he was buried with no marker. Some even talked of removing his lekku and montrails before burying him, the ultimate disgrace. Plus, his son, who came out of wedlock from a Twi'Lek woman just before the war ended, took after him and now is wed to poor Kikäto, bless her soul," Ashamnaah said, breaking suddenly from the formal tone of the conversation.

Sabine and Ashoka were both equally surprised at the sudden gossip, but since it concerned her long-lost niece and the mysterious husband she'd yet to meet, Ashoka was all ears.

"Did Kikäto willingly wed him?" Ashoka asked.

"Oh, yes. She was quite smitten from him from the very beginning of their courting, and had actually been his friend in childhood. The man, Ovasu, charmed her quite well, but is quite impolite to anyone else. And that name! It means 'void' in Ryl, and considered somewhat offensive by the race, and he does definitely appear a Twi'Lek, not Togruta, and yet his father names him that, without consulting the mistress or his wife," Nix spat.

"Ovasu's mother was not the healer- I mean Vosar's - wife?" Ashoka asked, greatly appalled.

"No, it was his fifth mistress, and the only one he didn't later marry after getting her pregnant, probably because she was neither human nor Togruta, like the others were. He went through two more and brought his wife and newest mistress at the time on the ship here," Ashamnaah said with a bitter laugh. "The wife, Shohla, was divorced two weeks after he got here. Shohla, bless her, still lives, and she cares for the orphans now."

"How is their baby, then?" Ashoka asked.

"Oh, that poor baby, Toreehd. The splitting image of his mother, thank Ashla, healthy blue montrails and little blue-on-white lekku, light-green skin, but his facial markings are different, obviously. I don't know what anyone would've done had he come out with blue skin, two lekku, and the bulging frontal brain," Ashamnaah said with a shudder. "The worst part is, two children both of Togruta and Twi'Lek parentage having a baby is the dangerous generation. Since Toreehd is so young, nobody is sure if something's terribly wrong with him yet, but we will probably soon know."

"That's awful," Ashoka said.

"Indeed it is," Nix said.

Before anyone could say anything else, a horn sounded. Nix and Ashamnaah got up quickly, and pulled the cauldron off the fire. "That's the dinner horn, we'll bring you both food, if you wish, Lady Tano," Nix said, returning to a more formal voice.

"No, thank you, I believe I'll get my own, if you don't mind," Ashoka replied.

"That is fine," Nix said, and the two quickly left, already talking about the smoked reeska that Hillarie had told them was going to be served.

"You feeling okay? You've been awfully quiet," Ashoka asked once Nix and Ashamnaah were gone.

Sabine shrugged. "I feel slightly homesick, which is weird, but I'm also too exhausted to sleep and - can we try to call Ketsu?"

"I guess," Ashoka said, glad she'd brought the hand-held holo-transmitter with her. She took it out of her satchel and powering it up, and after it picked up on the network that the Amidala came equipped with, she tapped in the code that called Ketsu, and handed it to Sabine, who sat up, though she did lean heavily on the pillow.

"If you don't mind, Sabine, I want to go get myself some food, and smoked reeska sounds good, what with how cold it is." Ashoka mentioned.

"It's fine, as long as you bring me back something," Sabine said.

"Deal," Ashoka answered, and walked out, shutting the door gently behind her.

It took a couple minutes before a fuzzy hologram appeared, and thirty seconds before it became clear and the sound began working.

"-Abine? Sabine? Is it working?" Ketsu's voice said, sounding staticky through the transmitter.

"It took a second, but now it's working," Sabine answered.

"Well... hi," Ketsu said.

"Hi," Sabine answered awkwardly.

"Where are you?" Ketsu asked.

"Some planet in wild space. There's a village of Togruta and not much else."

"Got it. Are you okay? You don't look too hot. And what's that smoke floating around you?."

"I... got a little sick from the carbon dioxide in the air, Ashoka had to carry me for awhile, until she found the village, and I either passed out or fell asleep on her back, I don't remember. There are healers here, Nix and Ashmnaah, and they're making me breath this stuff in or I'll get sick again. It's neon green, and it tastes minty."

"It tastes minty?"

"Yup. Can I talk to Jakuri and Roya?"

"Umm, maybe not?"

"Ketsu, what did you do?" Sabine asked, urgency and fear and anger in her words.

"Nothing, it's just that... that Hera's over for dinner with Jacen and Dawn."

"Chit," Sabine cursed, glad that Ashoka hadn't heard that.

"I mean, if you really want to talk to them, I can figure out something.." Ketsu trailed off, and began playing with a strand of hair on her shaggy pixie cut. If you could even call it a pixie cut at this point. Sabine could tell that Ketsu low-key hated it.

"You need a haircut. Bad."

"I know."

"Hey, what if we tell her that I'm... that I am on Vestar. Yeah, Vestar, since nobody actually lives there anymore, and I came to see if we could put an embassy of some sort on it, the ship broke down, and I crashed onto it, and I would still get sick from the air like I told you, and there are reports of the air of Vestar containing entirely too much CO2 for humans anyway, so it's not a bad lie. I kinda want to talk to her anyway."

"That's actually not a bad idea. I'll take you out to the living room. You want Hera first, or the kids?"

"The kids, please," Sabine said, and watched as the scenery moved too fast for the already strained transmitter to pick them up in focus, and suddenly, she was looking right at Roya.

"Hi, Roya!" Sabine said, smiling.

"Guess what, buir?" Roya asked, bouncing a little, making the hologram a little fuzzy.

"What?"

"I played Jedi with Dawn an' Jacen an' Jakuri, an' Jakuri an' Dawn were the Sith an' Jacen an' i were the Jedi an' Jacen got killed but I 'feated both of them!"

"Good job, Roya!" Sabine praised.

The holo went out of focus for a second, and then a young girl's face came into focus. " _Nemrae Royak'a le niger jink'alo mar'timqui likginlowek'aj'miep lasto'jemko_ ," she said, grinning at Sabine.

" _Lestii'no Roya'ka listo niger ner desn_?" Sabine responded.

" _Ney'paher'ehk_ ," Jakuri answered with a big nod.

"Moving on to big particles, aren't we, Jakuri?" Sabine asked, switching to Basic simply because she was too exhausted to try and remember how to ask it in Lothilian (despite how fluent she was, it still wasn't her native language or had been used so much that it felt like it, like Basic was) and besides, Jakuri likely wouldn't understand her.

"Yeah. It's kinda hard, but it makes sense, so that's good."

"Wait until you have to deal with the three-word words and the tones, and god, the script karking sucks to learn. But you're really smart, I think you'll figure it out."

"I can already write your name and my name and Roya's name and Mom's name in the script."

"That's good. Listen, I don't know how long this is gonna last since I'm out of the Republic, can you pass me to Dawn, Hera, or Jacen?"

"Yeah, hold on," Jakuri said, and the holo blurred again, and she heard a few snippets of muffled conversation before a face came into focus.

"Hi, Dawn!" Sabine signed, sitting up a bit more and adjusting the transmitter in case she needed to use a sign that required the girl to see past her shoulders.

" _Hi, Aunt Sabine! I gave Aunt Ketsu a name sign today!_ " Dawn signed back, her face beaming as she spelt out the word Ketsu on purpose, grinning widely and using her lekku a bit to say pretty much the same thing, and flapping her hands excitedly for good measure.

Luckily, Sabine had a basic understanding of lekku from years with Hera and several lessons from Hera and a Twi'Lek mechanic and Numa in exchange with her GBSL lessons with Hera, Jacen, and Dawn, and teaching the mechanic and Numa some Huttese.

" _Awesome! What is it_?"

Dawn took her right hand, put it into the K shape for finger spelling, and flung her whole arm left in a circle three times. Then, she signed, "Because of the time she flew the Ghost and did three whole loops."

" _That's a very good sign, Dawn._ "

Before Dawn could sign back, the screen blurred and Sabine could hear muffled yelling before it straightened out for a second to Jacen's face, and before he could say anything, it blurred out again and Sabine heard Hera saying "Because you grabbed it out of her hand, you don't get to talk to Aunt Sabine. Go sit in the corner, Jacen." and before she knew it, she was face to face with a very familiar Twi'Lek.

"Hey, Hera," Sabine said, letting her guard and carefully drawn shield down a bit, knowing that her kind of mom would detect that she wasn't feeling so hot anyway, and let some of her tiredness seep into her voice.

"You okay, Sabine? Ketsu told me what happened," Hera asked worriedly.

"I'm fine, just really tired and really karking sick of this minty air I'm being made to breathe in," Sabine responded.

"Minty air?"

"Yeah, the healers made this weird concoction that's neon green but tastes minty, and supposedly it cleans out enough carbon dioxide for me to breathe safely. I haven't felt nauseous for awhile, so I guess it's at least helping with that."

"Good. Okay, Dawn and Jacen are fighting over a stim toy, even though I never told him he could come out of his corner, so I think it's time for us to leave, and you need rest, anyway."

"Hera, I'm okay. I just had a bad... something," Sabine said.

"Don't overwork yourself, please," Hera pleaded, and something in her eyes tipped Sabine off to whom she was thinking of.

_Kanan._

"Okay, Hera," Sabine said softly, just loudly enough for the transmitter to pick up on it.

"Alright, goodbye."

"Goodbye."

When Ashoka came back with food, Sabine was already fast asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, they're getting back on track.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mentions of illness, a sick baby, brief implication of people having sex, and implied kissing.

The next morning, Ashoka convinced Nix and Ashamnaah to let Sabine sleep in past breakfast, and Ashoka made sure to grab a couple poffertjes and wrap them in a napkin she stole for Sabine to eat later, but soon it became apparent that the mechanic team had wrapped up the repairs and were refuelling the Amidala right that moment, and the guides were ready to take Ashoka and Sabine around the mountain to their ship, so Ashoka regretfully roused Sabine.

After she'd been woken, Sabine quickly put on her armour, brushed her teeth, and did her hair, all while Nix relentlessly held the bowl of green smoke near enough so that Sabine never breathed in the true air.

After some discussion, it was decided that Ashmnaah would go with Sabine, Ashoka, and three guides, to make sure that Sabine wasn't breathing in too much CO2, while Nix would stay behind to tend to Togruta who needed her.

Just as they were about to leave, someone tapped Ashoka on the shoulder.

A familiar purple-skinned Togruta and a male, blue skinned Twi'Lek holding a small Togruta babe who was wrapped in a light-brown blanket so that all you could see was the baby's arms that stuck out, and his lekku-framed face.

"Kikäto," Ashoka acknowledged.

"I have a favour to ask of you, Aunt," Kikäto said formally. It was then that Ashoka noticed the leather pack that was on Kikäto's back, and the matching one on the Twi'Lek.

"Go on," Ashoka prompted.

"Firstly, this my husband, Ovasu, and my son, Toreehd. We heard that you might be going to Gurshkii, to search for your war comrade. We wish to have passage to the planet, now that the war is over and revealing this colony isn't too dangerous. We will pay you, but we have only Republic notes, no Imperial credits or whatever currency is now used by the New Republic."

Ashoka thought about it for a moment. "I would be more than happy to get you there, Republic notes are fine, but my comrade must agree, as she'll be getting half the money, and I do fear that little Toreehd may get hypersickness if this his first time in hyperspace, which is harmless to older peoples, but may be somewhat life-threatening to a newborn. I cannot take responsibility if he grows severely ill during the trip."

Ovasu and Kikäto turned away and conversed in whispers for a moment, and then turned back. "We have decided that we are willing to take the risk, if Toreehd has a chance of growing up somewhere better than here," Ovasu said.

"I will find my comrade and ask her, hold on one moment," Ashoka said, and walked away quickly, her reclaimed cloak billowing out behind her from how quickly she walked, knowing that the guides would want to leave soon.

She found Sabine leaning against the side of the mountain, directly under the meat-smoking cave, holding the bowl of smoke in front of her face, surrounding her whole being with an aura of minty flavour and calm.

"You okay?" Ashoka asked.

Sabine shrugged, she seemed to either be subconsciously meditating or falling asleep, or maybe just zoned out.

"Hey, I have something to ask you," Ashoka tried, stepping into the space next to Sabine, bending a leg to hold her foot against the mountainside.

"What is it?" Sabine asked, seeming slightly more in the moment than before.

"You know Kikäto, my niece, her husband and their baby?" Ashoka didn't wait for an answer. "They want to tag along with us to Gurshkii, and will pay in Republic notes, which you will get half of."

"Won't the baby get hypersickness?"

"I warned them, and they said that they were willing to take the risk."

"Then, as long as they know that, I don't mind, and besides, it's your ship," Sabine said.

"You seem calm yet... tired."

"It's a weird kind of tired, too tired to sleep but just... I feel odd, but fine."

"As long as you don't think you'll keel over on the walk back."

"So long as we aren't taking the mountain."

"No, the guides are taking us around the base. Oh, and I have a present for you."

"A present?"

"Yeah. From Juxtaposé. She saw how you were wearing my cloak, and happened to have this," Ashoka said, dramatically grabbing a folded piece of navy-blue fabric from her satchel and letting it unfold itself, revealing a cape with straps to go on Sabine's shoulders, which would be covered by her armour.

"This is really cool!" Sabine said, and let Ashoka help her put it on, and once it was on, the younger woman twirled around in it, giving off streams of the smoke from the bowl that circled around her as the cape billowed and moved with her, and when everything settled, the cape fell just above Sabine's ankles, making it impossible for her to trip over it, and the smoke went back to going straight up and dissipating a couple feet above her.

"This is perfect," Sabine said, beaming like a child through the eerie green smoke.

"You can thank her right before we leave," Ashoka said, smiling a bit herself, and realising that this was the happiest she'd ever seen Sabine.

Now that she thought about it, she'd rarely even seen Sabine happy. Even after the Death Star had blown up (Sabine had momentarily passed out, partially because she hadn't eaten anything in two days so that there'd be enough food for everyone else, partially because she feared that Hera had been blown up with it, because they'd lost track of Hera's fighter) and even after the Empire had formally surrendered (she'd just smiled and rejected the invitation to be part of the committee to attend the surrendering ceremony.)

So it was a shock, a happy shock, even though Sabine might be slightly loopy and giddy from exhaustion, to see Sabine beaming so brightly, that it shone through the smoke that veiled Sabine in a eerie but strangely comforting way.

"It's nice to see you so happy, Sabine," Ashoka mentioned.

Sabine looked at her strangely.

"I've been happy a lot lately, Ashoka, I guess I just have weird ways of showing it. I thought everyone always knew what I was feeling, I guess not," she mused.

"What do you mean?"

"Growing up, I had a weird fear of everyone hearing what I was thinking, which turned into people knowing how I was feeling, which persisted well into the Rebellion. I think I'm over it now, but since I thought everyone always knew how I felt, I didn't bother showing it, and the Empire didn't like when we expressed emotions at the Academy anyway. I think I smile a lot more than I used to, at least I hope so, but it's always been a problem for me."

"I see."

"Was it too confusing? Please tell me it wasn't too confusing."

"Oh, no, it wasn't, I understand. A friend of mine during the Clone Wars, Naahlaah Laanas, never smiled and never expressed anything, really, which worried her master quite a bit, until she explained to him basically what you just said to me, and she told me about it later."

"Oh, okay," Sabine said.

"Lady Tano, Lady Wren, your guides are ready to leave," Juxtaposè said as she walked up to Ashoka and Sabine's spot on the side of the mountain.

"Alright, Juxtaposè. Thank you for your kindness," Ashoka said.

"And thank you for the medicine and the cape," Sabine added.

"It's no trouble at all," Juxtaposè said with a smile, especially after seeing Sabine's blithe beaming with her words.

So the two, led by Juxtaposè, walked over to where the guides, Ashamnaah, Kikäto, Ovasu, and Toreehd were waiting.

"We have decided to allow you passage to Gurshkii, niece, nephew, and grand-nephew, for 400 Republic notes, as long as you are aware that Toreehd will surely become ill." Ashoka said grandly.

Ovasu and Kikäto exchanged a glance before agreeing, and after Ashoka unexpectedly hugged Juxtaposé, and Sabine gently refused a similar embrace from Juxtaposè, and opted to give the woman a nod, to Ashoka's slight confusion.

So the whole group of them trooped around the mountain and were around it in less than three hours after going at a speed which Ashoka worried would be too much for Sabine, but the girl seemed fine, and Ashamnaah didn't seem worried.

After getting around the mountain, they stopped for lunch, when Sabine hungrily devoured the poffertjes that Ashoka had saved for her, and Ashamnaah sprinkled some little black pellets into the bowl that Sabine had relentlessly held the entire trek, and soon, they were walking again, and seemingly no time at all passed before they were at the Amidala.

Sabine and Ashoka thanked the guides and Ashamnaah, Sabine exchanged transmitter codes with the healer, and soon the Togruta had turned around to make the long journey back to the colony, Ashamnaah holding the bowl of green smoke, letting it create a long trail behind her since she didn't need to breathe it in.

The trip off the planet was peacefully void of events or complications, and Sabine had shown the family their cabin (the one that adjoined Ashoka's, which the elder woman had specifically instructed Sabine to give them, and soon, they had blasted away into hyperspace.

-

"How dare you!" An angry screech came from the cabin area.

Sabine and Ashoka both rushed to the cabin, expecting to find Ovasu and Kikäto fighting, but no. The two burst out of the room as Sabine and Ashoka ran up.

"You did not tell us that Toreehd would contract hypersickness!" Kikäto yelled in Ashoka's face, her accent deepened. She shoved the baby into Sabine's unexpecting arms, who nearly dropped the poor youngling, but soon gained a grip and studied Toreehd's face.

The baby was pale, and his facial veins were bulging and black, a big tip-off for when Togruta are feeling unwell, and he was sweaty.

"We did tell you, in fact!" Ashoka yelled, and Kikäto, who was clearly not expecting Ashoka to fight back, flinched. "We warned you, twice!"

"No, you did not!" Ovasu yelled.

"This is childish, you both know that Ashoka told you twice that this would happen, you agreed, and now you throw a hissy fit in your aunt's face about it. Grow up," Sabine said harshly.

For a moment, Ovasu and Kikäto stood there, returning Ashoka and Sabine's dirty looks, before turning around, stalking back into their cabin, and slamming the door shut, completely forgetting about how Toreehd was still in Sabine's arms.

Ashoka gave Sabine a greatful look and went into her own cabin, not noticing the baby in the younger woman's arms.

Sabine gave Toreehd a look, and stuck her tongue out at him goofily.

Toreehd stuck his tongue out back.

Sabine sighed and carried the baby out into her own cabin, grabbed a bottle of yellow liquid and a liquid medicine cup thing from her satchel, and carried it and Toreehd back out, into the common area, where she sat him on her lap by the table, bouncing him a bit as she measured out 15 millimetres and quit bouncing him long enough to gently force the liquid down.

After Toreehd had swallowed it up, she stood up and held the baby on her hip as capped the bottle, rinsed out the cup, and put it all back in her cabin before returning to the common area and bouncing the baby for awhile, and later just rocking him, silently begging for him to go to sleep.

Soon, to Sabine's utter joy, he was asleep.

But now, she didn't know what to do with herself, so she just sat with him, staring into space, for awhile.

Ashoka came in after awhile, and by that time, Sabine had found herself a datapad and was quite obviously doing work. Ashoka knew what had likely happened- she'd done a bunch of work before leaving, and she'd been given a bunch of other stuff to work on on the trip 'if she had the chance.'

She couldn't bear to see Sabine doing work when she was obviously extremely tired and had obviously cured or at least helped the baby's hypersickness, so she sent a gentle suggestion through the Force to lull Sabine to sleep.

Once she was positive that Sabine was fully unconscious, she picked up the baby and set him on his very surprised shirtless parents' bed. "Sabine helped him. You're welcome. Sex in my beds costs you an extra six hundred notes, seven if you make too much noise," she said, before turning on her heel and leaving the cabin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't been the best at providing my ever-so-wonderful end notes lately, since I've just been copy-pasting the words in or clicking on drafts to publish, and my summaries have been... atrocious. 
> 
> Fear not. I'll figure out something, don't worry.
> 
> One last thing? This is THE offical chapter where Sabine goes OOC. I'd say that you've been warned... but if you're reading this you already read that part.:P


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sabine's really got to stop working and start enjoying herself at least a _little_ bit.

When the ship came out of hyperspace, Ashoka was not expecting to find a floating space station and three lanes marked out with durasteel, and blinking signs telling her to pick a lane.

She hurriedly swooped into the middle lane, and she flew up to a... toll booth? where a bored-sounding woman told her to send 2 credits or 5 Republic notes out the airlock, which she went and did, and when she returned, she saw the woman in the booth counting out the notes, and then boredly droned "Have a great visit on Gurshkii." and a sign flashed green, signaling that she could move forward and proceed to land, where an equally bored-sounding man told her to land in berth number 0048.

The very moment she had landed the ship, she was in Kikäto and Ovasu's cabin, telling them to get out, and just before she left the ship, Kikäto defeatedly handed her six hundred Republic notes, hesitated, then silently forked over a hundred more, to which Ashoka just smirked.

Sabine, for her part, had not woken up during landing, or at all, since Ashoka had put her to sleep, which was normal, she'd just have to wake her up herself.

Or, she could leave Sabine where she was, allowing the younger woman to rest more...

Nope. Nope nope nope. Sabine would most likely kill her if she did that.

So instead, she found herself shaking Sabine gently, and sending another suggestion to her through the Force, this one to cast away any grogginess that Sabine might feel.

"I'm up, I'm up," Sabine mumbled, her eyes fluttering open. "Oh no, I did not fall asleep doing work again, did I?"

"Remember what I told you about doing work on this mission, Sabine? Also, you were exausted, you shouldn't have been working anyway."

"I know, I know, but Governor Tamaki told me if I had time to do any of it..."

"That's what I thought. Tell you what, if I find you working again I will put you to sleep with the Force."

"Not like you didn't already do that."

"What?" Ashoka asked, feigning innocence.

"I could tell when you sent the sleep suggestion to me, I always know when someone's using the Force on me, I just can't resist it. It's weird."

"Some non-Force sensitives are less susceptible to mind tricks and suggestions than others, but I've never heard of someone knowing it's happening. I don't believe it's normal, but I don't think it's necessarily bad. Anyway, I'm going out to go ask arounder for Ezra. Are you coming?"

"Duh," Sabine said, getting up.

-

After figuring out the metro system, the two took the D train to what Sabine said roughly translated to Market Street from some odd form of Aqualish, but luckily, the place they ended up was indeed an outdoor market.

The two split up, and Sabine decided to find a fruit stand, if such a thing existed here, and ask the seller about Ezra, if they spoke Basic, which thankfully, he did.

"About five years ago, a big, broken-up ship crashed onto the planet of Solmakk, just southeast of here, and some debris landed here. There were reports of a blue-haired boy and a blue-skinned man, and the blue-skinned man came here last year, he lives nearby, but the blue-haired boy wasn't heard of again," the seller said, and tossed Sabine a perfectly ripened pinkako fruit.

"Thank you," Sabine said, tossing him a credit, and eating her pinkako as she hurried along the street, trying to find Ashoka.

Somewhere, she took a wrong turn, and ran straight into a large, bright pink creature with seven tentacles.

"Oy, sorry," Sabine said, trying to go around them, and gasping a little bit when a tentacle wrapped around her wrist.

"You're not going anywhere anytime soon, pretty," the creature said in a tone of voice that made Sabine's blood run cold as another tentacle slowly but surely made its way up the side of Sabine's neck and up her face to cover her mouth firmly, and she could do nothing but freeze up helplessly as she was dragged into an alley.

The creature shoved her against the wall suddenly, causing Sabine to see spots in her vision, and it jabbed a needle of... something, probably a drug that would slow her down or even knock her out, into her upper thigh, eliciting a muffled gasp from under the tentacle, before the creature dragged her over to a white door on the side of one of the buildings and took a key out of a side pocket on his trousers and began unlocking the door.

It was just then that Sabine remembered that Ezra's lightsaber was on her waist, and only one arm was restrained, she would have to move quickly but she could easily escape, especially with the position she was being held at. It was too perfect.

All in one quick, seamless motion, Sabine grabbed the lightsaber, flicked it on, and slashed it over both the tentacles that were touching her, and the creature let out a blood-curdling screech as yellow liquid flooded out of the spots where two tentacles once were.

The cut off halves moved on their for a couple moments, before going limp, allowing Sabine to peel them off and throw them at the creature, before she shouted a couple foul words at it and ran away breathlessly, ignoring the throbbing in her head or how utterly awful she felt as she wove her way around all the people, the sellers hawking their wares relentlessly, and stalls and stalls of goods before finally collapsing into a different alley and flinging herself against a wall, letting out a couple sobs as she slid down and drew her knees up to her face to muffle the shrieks that came shortly after.

She could still feel the tentacles on her and it made her want to die die die and she smelled weird from the yellow stuff spewing everywhere and everything was way too loud, way too loud-

Sabine gasped as something touched her shoulder and moved away from it, not bringing her face up to look who it was.

She expected whomever it was to move away when they realised how much of a wreck she was, but instead, she heard a high female voice telling her to breathe in, breathe out, take deep breaths now, good, breathe in.

When Sabine had finally calmed down, she slowly brought her head up to find a worried-looking Iktotchi girl kneeling next to her, fiddling with the beads on a crude bracelet on her right wrist.

"I know, sensory overload at the same time as a panic attack sucks," the girl said softly.

Sabine stared.

"You know, an’aalan?" the Iktotchi tried.

"You mean..."

"Yup."

"I didn't know I had it."

"I mean, you might not, but it looks an awful lot like you might, or maybe you're just a little more sensitive than most. Do you tend to be a little fidgety, bad at expressing emotions, bad at interacting with other people, and sometimes everything's way too loud and you're touchy?"

Sabine nodded.

"Yeah, you probably have an’aalan, like me. Oh, here, you can have this," the girl said, and pulled a necklace on a black cord out of her pocket. It had a rubbery-looking feather on it that was the same red as part of her breastplate.

"You can chew it and suck it, and don't worry, it won't break up, and I've never chewed on it, don't worry, and the whole thing spins, like this," she holds the necklace by the cord with one hand, and with the other, she spins it in a circle, over and over again, before handing it to Sabine. "The cord's adjustable, too, if you want it longer or shorter. You can fidget on it if you need to let out some energy ever, okay?"

Sabine nodded again, curiously spinning the feather around. "Thank you," she whispered hoarsely.

"No problem," the girl said, and then she was gone, as quickly as she'd appeared.

Sabine put the necklace around her neck, and kept on spinning it, around and around, stopping only to feel the detail on the feather, and it was all oddly calming. She wanted to try chewing it, see if that helped too, but she was in public, and besides, she wanted to wash it off first, just in case.

After a couple minutes of this, she shakily got up, and looked around for the girl.

Nothing.

With a sad sigh, she walked out of the alley and continued on to try and find Ashoka, wishing that she'd asked the girl's name, and that she hadn't left all her elixirs on the ship so she could get the redness out of her eyes.

-

Finding Ashoka was hard.

Gurshkii, at least it's capital city of Lienwekk, was full of creatures of all species, and some that Sabine had never seen before, and plenty of them were Togruta, meaning that Kikäto, Ovasu, and Toreehd wouldn't be too out of the ordinary if they chose to live here. As for the rest of the planet, who knew.

Several times more, she ran into people by accident, since the streets were incredibly crowded, and she longed for the sleepy streets of Capital City, even with it's very original name, it was picturesque and it had the perfect amount of people. This place was dirty and ugly and utterly clogged with people.

Eventually, night began to fall, and all that Sabine could do was keep walking, knowing that she was utterly lost and Ashoka was probably worried sick, especially since neither had a way of reaching the other, and she was hungry.

It took a couple blocks to find a place that wasn't a strip club, a cantina, or a coffeeshop, or just a place that didn't look very safe, until she found a cozy-looking cafè with outdoor seatin. Some of the figures eating there looked a little suspicious, so Sabine ordered a pain au chocolat and a black coffee to go, since she needed to keep walking anyway.

While her coffee was being made, Sabine asked the cashier where the main ship berths were, just out of the planetary entrance, and the cashier, who couldn't have been older than fourteen, drew her up a map on a napkin, and then her coffee was there, she paid, and left, and quickly crossed the street when she heard blaster shots from behind her, and felt one skim her cheek, and she just sighed and continued on her merry way, knowing that the shots weren't meant for her anyway when someone shouted an apology after she ran across the street.

After roughly two hours of walking, she basically collapsed into the Amidala, where she found Ashoka pacing.

"Took you long enough," Ashoka said, in a futile attempt to pretend that she hadn't been worried at all.

"I had some... adventures," Sabine sighed, tossing her empty coffee cup in the trash.

"Jeez, Sabine, you look like chit," Ashoka commented. "You're gonna need a bacta patch for that wound on your face. And where'd you get that necklace?"

"Give me a minute to go get the medkit and take off my armour, Ashoka, and then I'll explain myself," Sabine said, slightly irritated.

"Okay, okay," Ashoka said, backing off from the issue.

A bacta patch and two hours later, and Sabine had finally recounted the entire day to Ashoka, including the Iktotchi girl saying that she probably had an'alarn, and Ashoka, who'd been horrified when Sabine had told her about the tentacle creature and had insisted on stabbing her arm with the universal antidote she happened to have in the medkit, thought that Sabine having an'alan would explain a lot of things, and a simple test (oh, the joys of technology) and it was confirmed- Sabine had an'alan and an explanation when someone asked why she was so weird.

Suddenly, things didn't seem all that bad. She had something that comforted her now, and a solid clue as to Ezra's whereabouts. It wasn't so bad to be alive at all.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter, but the fact that it's the second-to-last chapter in this fic can only mean one thing... right? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 
> 
> You might think "Why didn't Sabine stop at the coffeeshop you mentioned?" Well, my projecting of Amsterdam onto the universe hasn't ended. A coffeeshop is where you buy weed in the Netherlands. A coffee shop sells coffee.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're close. Sabine can feel it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You get this NOW because I just won in Camp Nanowrimo, but part two of the series won't come until next Thursday. I'll be busy on Friday.

The next morning, the two got up early and headed off of Gurshkii after finding coordinates to Solmakk, and before they knew it, they were in and out of hyperspace.

Unlike Gurshkii, there were no lanes or tollbooths, just an unprotected planet, something the two were used to. Sabine, for one, found it quite comforting. Ashoka was just glad there was no Separatist or, god forbid, Imperial blockade surrounding it. After the Clone Wars, she'd developed a fear of finding a Separatist blockade when she came out of hyperspace. Luckily, though, it'd never happened.

The terrain that the two were greeted with as they landed was sand and seventeen neat rows of twenty houses made of a familiar metal...

Sabine gasped as she recognised it, and she rested her head on top of her arms which rested on top of the dashboard.

"What is it, Sabine?" Ashoka asked.

"The houses. They're made of the durasteel of the Chimera. We've got to be close," Sabine answered, her voice a little muffled.

"Should I reach out to him through the Force..?"

"No, I want to surprise him. Let's land here, and ask around for him."

So Ashoka landed the ship at the head of rows 7 and 6, and just as Ashoka was about to open the main hatch, Sabine stopped her.

"What?"

"Whomever finds Ezra first gets forty notes. Twenty that you already had, plus twenty from the other person," Sabine said, tossing Ashoka twenty credits neatly hung on a string from the hole in the centre that every coin had.

"You're on," Ashoka said, undoing the knot at the top of the string and threading on one, two, three, twenty credits, and tossing it on the table before grabbing her staff and using the tip of it to touch the button that subsequently opened the main hatch.

"Why do you even have the staff, anyway? You've got lightsabers," Sabine asked curiously.

Ashoka hesitated a bit before hiking up her left pant leg and moving away the cloak to expose a long, black mark.

"Is that..?"

"Lightsaber. Happened during the Clone Wars, and it goes all the way up to my collarbone," Ashoka said, pulling the cloak up and her shirt down a bit to prove it. There was indeed a black mark that tapered off there.

"It bothered me for the rest of the war, but afterwards, I sold my jedi comlink for a cream treatment that made it calm down for awhile... I guess a couple of years. Anyway, it had started bothering me a little again around the time I met you, and I couldn't risk exposing the rebellion for another cream treatment, so I let it sit. By the time the Battle of Endor was said and done, it was practically burning me every time I moved, so I took a break and tracked down the cream seller, but they'd changed their recipe so it wasn't as good as the old stuff, since some Twi'Lek had gotten skin cancer and died from it when it was stronger, and by that time, walking on it so much had scored me a limp. Now, I need this to walk. I could probably walk without it, but I'd rather not. It's become as much a physical crutch as an emotional one," Ashoka explained as they left the ship, closed the main hatch back up, and begun walking down the row of houses.

Sabine nodded in understanding, and the two continued down the row, finding nobody on the street, but when they turned the corner, thankfully it was a much different story, with people walking along the road, people sitting on porches with beers in hand, people going in and out of their houses, even people playing instruments.

"Forty notes, Sabine. Don't get lost again," Ashoka said, and Sabine again nodded in understanding and the two split off.

Confirming that Ezra was indeed on this planet wasn't very hard, it was just getting a straight answer from anyone about his exact whereabouts that was a problem.

"Well, I sure don't know about a Ezra Bridger with blue hair on this planet, but I do know of a Dev Morgan," a woman with milkmaid braids said, then passed a joint to a Twi'Lek woman with twisted lekku.

"Where can I find this Dev Morgan?" Sabine asked.

"Well, he's around everywhere. Never the same place twice," the Twi'Lek lady said, breathing smoke right into Sabine's face.

"Excuse me, sir, do you happen to know where I could find a Dev Morgan?" Sabine asked an elderly Rodian gentleman who was sitting on the porch of one house in row 12.

"What do you want him for?" The Rodian snapped.

"He owes me quite a bit of money," Sabine fibbed.

"Ah. And if I were to tell you where to find him, would I get part of that money?"

"Depends on if your info's good or not."

"Pay me now, and I'll tell you."

"Forget it," Sabine said, and softly cussed him out in Mando'a under her breath as she walked away.

"Miss! Miss!" A Tholothian youngling yelled, and Sabine didn't realise that the youngling was meant for her until she smashed into her.

"Oop, sorry," Sabine said, trying to move around them, but the girl grabbed her wrist.

"Miss, my momma said I gotta give this to you, and you've gotta use it," the girl said urgently.

Sabine squatted down to the youngling's level and removed her helmet. "What's your momma want you to give me?" She asked gently, with what she hoped was a kind smile.

The girl took Sabine's left hand, opened it, and put a little pink rock into it, then closed it up. "I found it when I was playing Mooses with Swan Circling and Javeen. Momma says it's special."

"Thank you, Miss," Sabine said.

"My name's Kaundra."

"Well then, thank you, Ms. Kaundra," Sabine corrected, to which Kaunda giggled.

"I have a question, Kaundra," Sabine began.

Kaundra nodded.

"I'm looking for a man named Dev Morgan. Blue hair, blue eyes, two scars on his right cheek."

"Oh, that's easy! On Saturdays, he's always at Chimera Cantina, on row 14. Usually, he never orders anything, but he'll play a couple rounds of Sabbac. He's an awful honest man, too, and he never cheats," Kaundra said.

"Thank you, Kaundra. I must be on my way now, but I hope I'll meet you again someday," Sabine said.

"Wait! My Momma said that if you took the stone, I hafta invite you to dinner at 1800!"

"Well, I'll come, but I'll have to bring my friend, and perhaps Dev Morgan, too. My friend is a big Togruta, but she doesn't eat much. I don't know about Morgan, though."

Kaundra looked over Sabine's shoulder, then nodded. "My momma says that that's okay. Remember, 1800 at the eastern end of row 2!" Kaundra said, before skipping away.

Sabine looked around for anyone who looked like they could be Kaundra's mother, but she didn't see anyone, and anyway, she now had a potential location for Ezra. So she put her helmet back on and continued on her merry way.

As she continued down the row, she looked at the stone in her palm. It was kind of triangular, but with rounded sides, and it was mostly bright pink, but it had little pink sparkles imbedded in it, and some splotches of purple. She didn't see anything particularly special about it, but didn't think much of it as she pocketed it and continued down the row.

At the end of every row, there was a sign denoting the row number, and you could walk past these signs until you came up to the row that you wanted. Sabine did this, and found the cantina fairly quickly, since it was smack dab in the centre of the row, taking up the space of two houses.

Sabine ducked around an obviously stone-drunk man who was staggering out, her cape stirring up a bit of sand, and lifted a beaded curtain to get in.

It felt like any other cantina, what with how it was overly hot, smelled of vomit and alcohol, and had several tables of people drunkenly playing cards, and witnessed multiple people cheating, but didn't feel like interfering. As she passed the counter, a bartender asked what she wanted to drink, but she merely ignored him, and continued further back to try and find him.

She heard a voice speaking angrily further back, and her heart leapt. _Is that him?_  she wondered, walking quickly towards the source.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


End file.
